EMBRACING CHANGE

I often focus on the impact technological advances can have on a consumer engagement level, but I want to pull back a bit in this post and offer a quick look at the industry as a whole, prompted by a recent Harvard Business Review blog post exploring the (gasp) potential demise of Traditional Ad Agencies, specifically at the hands of increasingly prominent open source development platforms.

Yes, the headline is retread sensationalism and yes, the point of view is more than a little biased (the co-author is also the CEO of Victors and Spoils, an advertising agency fundamentally built on crowd sourcing), but there is a very real and relevant heartbeat to it. Crowd sourced innovation is not as perfect as the article may lead you to believe, but it is one of many new techniques that brand marketers should be experimenting with if they want to survive.

New methods can certainly seem disruptive, but isn’t that the same feeling we’re trying to convey (If I had a dime for every time I’ve read praise for “disruptive” campaigns, I wouldn’t need to be writing this blog)? If something seems foreign to us, as marketers, don’t you think it stands the chance to be unique and memorable to consumers?

Whether it’s crowd sourcing creative instead of relying on internal resources, anchoring online communication through a social media platform instead of developing a flashy website, or, yes, conveying a brand’s message with a live experience instead of a thirty second spot, the tactics to the left and right of center are beginning to break through and reshape the advertising world. No, not everything will be perfect, but the more we, as a collective group, work towards the future instead of fighting for the past, the better that resulting future will be for brand marketers.